Low level laser therapy for treating rheumatoid arthritis

Laser therapy may be effective for short-term relief of pain and morning stiffness for patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

A Cochrane review included 5 studies with a total of 222 subjects. Relative to a separate control group, LLLT reduced pain by 1.10 points (95% CI: 1.82 to 0.39) on visual analogue scale relative to placebo, reduced morning stiffness duration by 27.5 minutes (95% CI: 2.9 to 52 minutes) and increased tip to palm flexibility by 1.3 cm (95% CI: 0.8 to 1.7). Other outcomes such as functional assessment, range of motion and local swelling did not differ between groups. In one small study (n=17) which used the opposite limb of the same individual as a control there was no improvement in laser treated hands.

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by imprecise results (limited study size for each comparison) and by indirectness (differences in studied interventions, i.e. heterogeneity of clinical application of LLLT).

Ədəbiyyat

1. Brosseau L, Robinson V, Wells G, Debie R, Gam A, Harman K, Morin M, Shea B, Tugwell P. Low level laser therapy (Classes I, II and III) for treating rheumatoid arthritis. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2005 Oct 19;(4):CD002049.